


a road that meets the road that goes to my house

by thatsparrow



Category: The Penumbra Podcast
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Roommates/Housemates, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-08-04
Updated: 2018-08-04
Packaged: 2019-06-21 11:40:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,737
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15556911
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thatsparrow/pseuds/thatsparrow
Summary: It's tempting as anything for Juno to handle the roommate situation the way he likes to handle most things—one part denial, one part cynicism, and three parts whiskey—but Sasha's not wrong about him running out of options. He needs an answer—needs onefast—and he won't come up with anything by continuing to keep the door closed on Mick's empty room, or shoving the situation to the back of his closet the way he does with bad memories. Not when he's this close to the end of the month and his savings account is less of a bottomless pit and more of a shallow ditch.So it can't feel like anything other than a blessing and a trick when Sasha calls with a solution.





	a road that meets the road that goes to my house

**Author's Note:**

> initially, I'd intended to write this whole thing as a complete one-shot before posting it, but it's been sitting in my drafts for _months_ and I haven't been making in progress, and so now it's going to be a multi-chapter fic and hopefully that will give me the motivation to finish it
> 
> title from "july, july" by the decemberists

The first thing Juno thinks is that he should have known better.

The second — that now he owes Sasha twenty bucks.

"Are you mad, Juno? Please tell me if you're mad. Look, I feel like the world's biggest _dick_ for doing this to you—"

"Easy, Mick. I'm not mad."

"Really? You promise?"

"Yeah, I promise."

And it's true, mostly. Because Mick is looking up at him with those big goddamn basset-hound eyes, and worrying the edge of the paper napkin with his nervous fingers, and because even after twenty-something years, Juno still hasn't figured out how to be mad at Mick Mercury. Getting angry at Mick would be like telling some four-year-old there's no such thing as the tooth fairy — not the worst sin in the world, but undeniably a dick move.

Besides, it's not like Mick's taking off because he's been roped into another pyramid scheme or he's auditioning for season-whatever of _Survivor_ —shit, is _Survivor_ even still a thing?—or he's chasing this month's greatest love-of-his-life. Not like this is another send-off at Sasha's apartment with paper streamers and half-price party hats and Juno's best effort at a good-luck smile—one that never looks right and prompts Sasha's jokes that his face isn't meant to move that way—and that always comes full circle at Mick's inevitable return to the city, celebrated with a bottle of whiskey split three ways on mismatched coasters around Sasha's kitchen table.

No, Juno knows that dance well, and knows well-enough that this isn't it. This is _real_. This is a legitimate job, and a legitimate opportunity, and it's not Mick's fault that his fresh start belongs to the streets of another city. Juno might be an asshole—scratch that, _is_ an asshole—but he'd never go so far as to begrudge Mick his hard-worked-for shot at happiness. Mick, who's spent years breaking fingernails and burning through coffee grounds and treating every Craigslist want-ad and paper flyer staple-gunned to telephone poles like his own form of scripture. Mick, who's been kicked to the curb so often he calls it his second home — who says that line without enough levity to sell it as a joke.

He deserves something good, and of course Juno could never be mad at him for that.

So, no, Juno's not angry — but he is allowed to be frustrated, and there's a part of him that quietly nurses that emotion like the last few sips of beer sitting at the bottom of his glass. He loves Mick the way you do with a history built on scraped knees and shared felonies and shitty memories carried like fingerprints, and he resents Mick a little for skipping out eight months early on their lease. He can do both. Can be happy for his best friend and kick himself for thinking that Mick could stay put for a whole year. Those two things aren't mutually exclusive.

Besides, if anyone knows how to temper a sweet moment with the sharp taste of something bitter, it's Juno Steel.

And, yes, Mick's announcement means that now Juno either needs a new apartment or a new roommate, but it's not like those problems won't wait for a few more hours. So he sets aside his nagging concerns like the sugar packets he's been turning over in his fingers, and settles for toasting Mick's good fortune in the back-corner booth of their favorite bar. Doesn't keep an eye on the clock and doesn't fight back when Mick offers to cover another round—"damn right you will, Mercury"—and just accepts that he'll get hit with a sledgehammer of a hangover tomorrow morning. Trades stories back-and-forth with Mick as their glasses empty and refill like magic or clockwork, and somewhere around midnight he manages a smile that actually feels genuine.

 

—

 

He meets Sasha for coffee two days later, sliding a wrinkled twenty across the table before he's taken his first sip.

"How many times do I get to say 'I told you so'?"

"You're already getting a twenty and some of my pride — I'll only give you one more."

"I told you so."

"Yeah, I know you did."

He's quiet as his thumb traces a line over the 'Juno' inked out in black sharpie along the side of the Starbucks cup, doesn't offer Sasha any other words as his finger skates a path along the rough edge of the cardboard sleeve. The street outside is a mess of bright white headlights and the domed silhouettes of dark umbrellas slick with rainwater, and Juno loses himself in the images blurred through the window panes because he's not quite ready to meet whatever look Sasha's giving him from across the table.

"You're angry," she says after a beat, her words certain and decisive as a knife's edge, like every statement Sasha makes.

"I'm not."

"You are a little."

Juno turns his head to look her way, taking a sip that's black and bitter and almost too-hot against his tongue. "Frustrated, maybe, but not even really at Mick." He shrugs his shoulders and leans back into the chair, watching Sasha watching him. He's working to keep his posture determinedly casual and his tone cautiously light and he doesn't think he succeeds on either count. "I _am_ happy for him."

"I never said you weren't."

"But him leaving means I need to find a new roommate, and dammit if that isn't the _last_ thing I want to be dealing with."

"I never said it wasn't."

Juno gives Sasha an unamused look, one she returns evenly. He breaks first, because it's Sasha, and she always has him beat.

"I _swear_ , subletting to Mick seemed like a good idea at the time."

The slight shake of her head is the subtlest kind of patronizing. "It didn't, and you know it didn't. You just couldn't come up with anything better." She gives him a look that feels like consolation and admonishment all in one. "Come on, Juno. I love Mick same as you, but that's why I know better than to rent to him."

There's a pause — the kind that usually follows when Juno knows that Sasha's right and doesn't want to admit it. The same one that colored so many games of Scrabble and consultations of the Monopoly rule book in their childhood, even though the look that she's giving him now has nothing to do with trading pastel bills across their secondhand game board. She'd bet Mick wouldn't last six months in Juno's apartment, and—though he'd never admit it—Juno was prepared to lose from the moment he shook her hand.

"So, what are you going to do now?" Sasha asks, picking pieces off her blueberry scone while steam curls from the surface of Juno's coffee.

"Sell a kidney, maybe?"

"Be serious."

"You think that was a joke? I need a way to make up Mick's rent money somehow." He frowns at Sasha, fingers tapping an idle rhythm against the tabletop. "I bet I've got good kidneys, right? Hey, Sasha, how much do you think I could get for a kidney? What do kidneys go for these days?"

"Juno, listen to me, as someone who knows you and loves you — no one wants your kidneys."

"I'm offended. On behalf of myself and my two probably exceptional kidneys."

Sasha doesn't respond, and he doesn't blame her.

"Alright, seriously? Hell if I know. I can't get a new place, and I sure as shit can't afford this one on my own. And since selling a kidney is clearly out of the question, I need a new roommate. Maybe post on Craigslist? That's a thing people do, right?"

"Sounds like an invitation to get your furniture stolen."

"Honestly, I'd be flattered if anyone found my furniture worth stealing."

Sasha allows herself a slight smile at that, and Juno takes it as a victory.

 

—

 

So Juno sets up a straightforward ad on Craigslist when he gets home that afternoon, gets his first response an hour later, and it's six days of shitty interviews before he's willing to call Sasha and tell her that he's fucked.

It doesn't surprise him that she doesn't need to ask to know why he's calling, but this is Sasha, so odds are goods she's been keeping an eye on the post since the moment it went up. Juno can't _prove_ that Sasha works for the NSA, but, well, he doesn't actually know what the _fuck_ Sasha does, so NSA seems as good a guess as any.

"Alright, how bad were they?"

"Bad. The last one asked me to call him 'The Prince' and I can't tell if that was his legal name or him advertising his kinks, and I absolutely do not want to find out which one it is." He can hear her laughter coming through the speaker as he sifts through case files on his desk. "You think it's funny now, but guess whose couch I'll be living on after I get evicted."

"It's cute you think I'd let you anywhere near my couch."

Juno pauses, giving up on reviewing the jigsaw of manila folders in front of him and settling for spinning a Bic ballpoint between his fingers, letting out a sigh that's arguably a little louder than necessary. And he doesn't really know what he's waiting for from Sasha, whether he wants her consolation or her understanding or for her to offer him an answer—because he's never known anything in life to send Sasha stumbling and, _fuck_ , what he wouldn't give to learn that trick—but she doesn't believe in handling his feelings with padded gloves, and he's not really surprised when the other end of the line stays silent. Hell, if it weren't for the seconds still counting up on the screen, he would think she'd hung up.

"Let's say you were in my shoes," Juno says at last, his desperation weighing heavy enough to break the silence. "What would you do?"

"I think we've already established that I wouldn't have ended up in that situation in the first place."

"Shit, Sasha, is your advice really 'make better choices'? You know I'm not _intentionally_ trying to fuck up my life, right?"

"It's not—" Sasha lets out a slight exhale, and Juno can picture her sitting at her desk, eyes closed, massaging her temples the way that she does when she's caught somewhere between irritated and exasperated. "Look, you know you fucked up and I've told you the same more than once. You don't need to hear me say it again. And, yes, now you're in a shitty situation and there are no easy answers and I can't give you anything better than that." She pauses, her tone trailing off like there's a comma at the end of her words instead of a period. "But you're also going to figure this out because you don't have any other choice. Whether that means putting up with an asshole roommate for a couple months, or letting me loan you some money, or sleeping in my living room until you get things sorted out, you'll come up with something. That's what needs to happen, Juno, so that's what you're going to do."

And this is why Juno needs someone like Sasha — because she deals out uncensored, sharp-edged practicality like a slap to the face, and Juno's been sent reeling often enough to know when he needs that kind of a wake-up call.

"Thought you said I wasn't allowed anywhere near your couch."

"Yes, well, congratulations on catching me at a moment of weakness."

 

—

 

Even with Sasha's words ringing periodically in his mind like alarm clock bells, Juno has a hard time taking them to heart, because, well, because he's fucking _Juno Steel_ so _of course_ he doesn't listen. And it's tempting as anything to handle the roommate situation the way he likes to handle most things—one part denial, one part cynicism, and three parts whiskey—but Sasha's not wrong about him running out of options. He needs an answer—needs one _fast_ —and he won't come up with anything by continuing to keep the door closed on Mick's empty room, or shoving the situation to the back of his closet the way he does with bad memories. Not when he's this close to the end of the month and his savings account is less of a bottomless pit and more of a shallow ditch. Still, there's miles of real estate between knowing he needs a way out, and actually finding one, and Juno's still camped out in that stretch of no-man's-land without any sign of pulling up the tent pegs.

So it can't feel like anything other than a blessing and a trick when Sasha calls with a solution.

"Had any luck yet?"

"You mean with the bottom-of-the-barrel that Hyperion has to offer? Shockingly enough, no. At this point, the kinky goddamn 'Prince' is starting to look like my best bet."

"And while I'd clearly hate to deprive you and your sex life of that opportunity, I've got another option, if you're interested."

Juno's brows pull together as he hears Sasha's words, her voice muddled enough through the speakerphone that he has to wonder if he's misheard.

"Come again?"

"A friend of mine is moving into town, and he's looking for a place to stay. Interested?"

"Friend? Thought me and Mick were the only ones with that honor."

"Call him an acquaintance, then, if that makes you feel better. We worked together briefly a couple of years ago, and he got in touch when he found out he was moving to Hyperion. Honestly, he could afford much better than the shithole you call home—"

"Okay, my place isn't _that_ bad."

"—but apparently the move is something of a last-minute affair, and he needs somewhere sooner rather than later, even if it is on the less-impressive end of the spectrum."

"Who is he?"

"Rex Glass — at least, that's how I knew him. But he signed his email 'Peter Nureyev', so I'm guessing that's what he currently goes by. He's—" Sasha pauses, and Juno can hear her sifting through words in the silence, "—well, frankly, he's a little eccentric. But he needs somewhere to stay, even if just for a month or two, and you're not in a position where you can afford to pass at the rent money."

It's not like she's _wrong_ , but Juno wouldn't mind if Sasha didn't talk about his finances like she has firsthand knowledge.

"So, Juno, what do you think?"

Lots of things, and most of them not very promising. Like the fact that Peter Nureyev or Rex Glass or whoever-he-is doesn't sound like a first-choice candidate, but that Juno also blew past the point of indulging in first-choices a couple miles back with the gas pedal glued to the floor. (Then again, it's not like Juno's ever really lived a life of anything other than backup options and Scotch-tape solutions and plans C, D, and E.)

Still, he pauses for an extra moment or two so Sasha might think he's mulling it over. Even if it's just a pretense. Even if it's just for the sake of his pride.

"Yeah, I guess that sounds alright," he says at last, hoping his voice is just the right amount of casual and sure that Sasha isn't buying it. "What do you need from me?"

"Nothing, I don't think. I'll pass along his contact information so the two of you can set up a time to chat. And, Juno? Do play nice."

"Hell's that supposed to mean?"

"It means that I know you, and I know that when it comes to meeting someone new, you're about as a friendly as a cactus or a cat that's just had its tail stepped on."

"I'm not _that_ bad."

"No, actually. You're worse."

Before Juno can argue—because advice on how to be friendly is rich coming from Sasha, who smiles so rarely it's like she only has a dozen to spare for the year—she's giving him the contact info, and Juno barely has time to grab a pen and a pad of Post-Its to get down the number before Sasha's telling him that she has to run.

And then the line goes dead, and Juno's left staring at the scribbled collection of numbers in front of him, and he picks up the phone to call Rex-Glass-slash-Peter-Nureyev before he can talk himself out of it.


End file.
